Any religion which encourages or ensures every man to be his best self is a Religion of Man. This religion has to recognize the uniqueness of man and provide him opportunities to grow in every possible way – materially as well as spiritually.
Hinduism, evolved over the centuries, has accumulated a treasure of wisdom and vision of many sages and saints. Its insights into the nature of man and the Divine can embrace the past, the present and the future.
One of the great insight of Vedas and Upanishads and reiterated by the great sage and thinker, Sri Shankaracharya, in his Advaita philosophy is : Man is a spark of the Divine – “ Aham Brahamsmi” ( I am God or God’s manifestation ). A drop of water and the ocean are essentially the same. It is a mystic reality and it is also a charter of religious democracy – equality, liberty and fraternity. Just as every voter has the potential to be the President of the Indian Republic, every human being has the capacity to be as perfect as God himself. Of course, it is a fact of life that not many have achieved or realized this potential. In modern times only a few like Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Swami Vivekananda or Sri Ramana Maharshi have done so. Man is more weak or ignorant than wicked. When he realizes his strength or knowledge, he can find his true potential.
Another insight that ensures progress of mankind is the concept of Dharma, which means “that which sustains society”. There are no permanent and unchanging rules and regulations governing the society. They are always subject to change to serve the requirements of the society. That is why the Upanishads say: “ Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya…( Let us go from Darkness to Light..” The search of science for truth does not contradict Hindu religion or Hindu philosophy at all. That is why no Gelileos have been imprisoned and no heretics have been burnt on the stake in India.
The third most important insight is the theory of karma and reincarnation. Dharma and karma are related and are based on law of life and the law of nature. In simple language, it means ‘you reap what you sow’. Some seeds grow into a plant in a few months and some take years to grow into a tree.
Theory of karma means man’s destiny is his own hands. Every act goes to shape one’s future. There is a rule of law not merely in nature but also in the world of mind and morals. Karma means both action and consequences. Action whether in thought or deed leads to certain consequences, immediately or a little later. Nobody can escape consequences any action. The right action leads to right consequences. Karma does not negate freedom. Dr.S.Radhakrishnan has compared it to a game of cards.The cards that you get are based on your past game. You still have the freedom to play cards of your present game which of course will shape the future.
Over the centuries, some of the Hindu sages and thinkers formulated structures for a happy and prosperous life of the people and the society – varnashram dharma – four divisons of labour and four stages of life. The four divisions of labour of a society are : Brahman (priest/teacher) ; kshtriya (ruler/fighter); vaishya (farmer/trader),and sudra ( labourer/worker). The four stages of life are : brahmacharya ( student) ; grahasta ( house-holder) ; vanaprashta ( retired life in a forest for contemplation) and sanyasa ( life of renunciation of all worldly ties and a life dedicated to salvation of the soul).
For these Hindu thinkers, the society is a virat purush ( huge man ) and the division of labour are like the movements of the body directed by the mind for the welfare of all. The various parts of the body are inter-dependent and one cannot exist without the other parts. If limb is weak or defective, man becomes lame. Similarly, if any part of the society becomes weak or defective, the society becomes weak. The society that these thinkers envisaged is not a competitive society but a co-operative society where everybody has a place.
The Hindu scheme of life has a place for everything and everything in its proper place. The four-fold purushatras ( purposes/ fulfillments) are : dharma ( duties that sustain man and society) ; artha (wealth/work) ; kama ( desire/enjoyment) and ; moksha ( liberation from worldly ties). In this scheme, man and the divine have been brought together.
As Krishna explains in Bhagavad Gita, charturvarnam maya sahratam gunakarma vibhaghasha .These divisions of labour were created on the basis of guna ( innate ability or talent ) and karma ( training). It was not intended to be hereditary. Man is born sudra by birth and becomes dvija ( twice-born) by spiritual regeneration. The great Vasistha was a son of a prostitute and the sage Vyasa was a son of a fisher-woman.
Like all human institutions, these formulations became rigid and lost their purpose or relevance especially the varna system ( caste system) though these divisions of labour still exist in all societies.
Human spirit is free and it can not be circumscribed by rules and regulations. This is well- propounded by the saint-poets who proclaimed by their lives that man is not bound by man-made restrictions. They brought Hindu religion back to the common man. The galaxy of saints and saint-poets in various parts of the country – Buddha and Mahavir in ancient times, Sant Jneshwar and Sant Tukaram in Maharashtra ; Purandaradas and Kanakadas in Karnataka ; Alwars in Tamilnadu ; Kabirdas and Tulsidas in Hindi region ; Nanakdev in Panjab and Chitanya Mahaprabhu in Eastern India.
